Let us lift up our heart with [our] hands unto God in the heavens.
Jerusalem lies in ruins, and the prophet turns from the disaster itself to what the survivors must do. Should people under God's hand look for a way out of the trouble, or a way back to God?
The verse is the middle step of a sequence that begins in verse 40:
Verse 40 begins the description of a real return. First comes self-examination: "Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!" Next comes prayer: "Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven." Then comes confession: "We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven." It is a prophetic picture of the repentance of a Jewish remnant at the close of this present age, just before the Lord appears in visible glory.
Most of us want the trouble to stop. Fewer want to look at ourselves.
It is far more fitting to say from the heart, "Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!" This shows that the discipline is having its desired effect... It is this godly exercise that is so sadly lacking. Troubles come, and some people faint under them. Others make light of them and put on a hard, self-confident air, which does not suit anyone under God's hand. With most of us, I fear, the first aim is to escape the place of discipline any way we can. We miss the breaking down before God that leads us to search and test our ways.
Some translations read "let us lift up our heart with our hands." One writer ties the lifted hands to the life behind them:
There is an important lesson here. It is useless to pray while persisting in sin. The man who does not seek to walk with God has no right to expect anything from Him... This is the key to answered prayer. Obedience gives confidence. You cannot ask in faith while you cling to something that grieves the Holy Spirit and dishonours the Lord Jesus Christ. Suppose prayer is not answered and the heavens seem like brass. That is a solemn sign of a wrong state of soul. It should lead to self-judgment and to giving up every evil way.
Paul uses the same gesture, and one writer says what the lifted hands carry:
Paul uses the term in 1 Timothy 2:8, "Lifting up holy hands." As we come into the presence of God, we know we are speaking to Him, and we know He is listening. When we bless God we offer something to Him: our hands are full of the excellence of Christ.
The prayer goes up to "God in heaven." The word for God here is 'El.
'El' itself means The Mighty... It is the name used, in contrast with man, for a God someone personally owns, whether the true God or a false one.
The prayer does not ask for relief. It moves straight into an admission, and no word of pardon follows.
In verses 40-42 the call is to self-judgment... "We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven." It was just, but overwhelming, to find no sign of pardon in His ways.
This confession is not despair. Their trouble came from their own sin, so owning it before God is the way back:
The enemy brought Jerusalem's afflictions, but those afflictions were the result of her sins against the LORD. So the people must own those sins before Him. The prophet urges them to do it. As he does, he waits in confidence for the Lord to step in for them, just as he himself had cried out and the Lord had delivered him.
- Search — verse 40 comes first for a reason: testing our ways, not escaping the trouble, is the sign that God's discipline is working.
- Lift — lift the hands in prayer, but lift the heart with them; hands alone are hollow.
- Let go — praying while you hold on to known sin is useless. Unanswered prayer should send you to self-judgment, not to complaint.
- Own it — the prayer moves straight into confession: they name their transgression and rebellion before any sign of pardon comes.
- Wait — after confession comes confidence: the prophet cried out to God, and God delivered him.
We have transgressed and have rebelled thou hast not pardoned.
Here the mourning turns into confession. The speakers name their own sin, and in the same breath say that God has not forgiven. That raises a hard question. Why would a people who confess still find no pardon?
Verses 40–42 form one movement. Confession comes at the end of it.
Verse 40 begins the description of a real return. First comes self-examination: "Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!" Next comes prayer: "Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven." Then comes confession: "We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven." It is a prophetic picture of the repentance of a Jewish remnant at the end of this present age, when the Lord is about to appear in visible glory.
So the verse is not the start of repentance but its honest end point.
One writer puts the word into the first person. This is what transgression sounds like from the inside:
Transgression is revolt, rebellion. God says "You shall not," I say, "I will." God says, "You shall," I say, "I won't." In pity He lays His hand on my shoulder and says, "Don't." I pull my shoulder away and treat His pity with contempt. That is transgression.
The hardest words in the verse are the last ones. They are not an accusation against God. They accept a fact about His ways.
Then in verses 40-42 the call is to self-judgment... It was just, but overwhelming, to find no sign of pardon in His ways.
Note the two words held together: just, and overwhelming. The speakers do not argue that God is unfair. They feel the full weight of what their own sin has produced.
Two verses later, the same speakers say their prayer cannot get through. One writer draws the lesson for anyone whose praying feels blocked.
In brokenness of spirit they cry, "You have wrapped Yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through" (v. 44). There is an important lesson here. It is useless to pray while persisting in sin. The man who does not seek to walk with God has no right to expect anything from Him... Obedience gives confidence. It is impossible to ask in faith while clinging to something that is grieving the Holy Spirit and dishonouring the Lord Jesus Christ. If prayer is not answered, if the heavens seem like brass, it is a solemn sign of a wrong state of soul. It should lead to self-judgment and to giving up every evil way.
Under God's discipline, the first instinct runs the other way.
With most of us, it is to be feared, the first aim is to get out of the place of discipline in any way we can. We want escape without that breaking down before God which leads to the searching and trying of our ways. It was here that Judah so badly failed. When God sent the king of Babylon against them because of their sins, they turned to the king of Egypt for help, and that in plain defiance of the word of the Lord. But they had to learn in a practical way the bitterness of departure from God.
"You have not forgiven" is not the end of the story. One writer explains the order God keeps.
Before God can righteously remember their sins no more, He must be reminded of them. In other words, Israel must fully confess their sins before God can justify... Israel must confess their sin in this way and justify God in His dealings with them. Then God will justify Israel, blot out their transgressions and remember their sin no more.
- Search — the verse belongs to a sequence: examine your ways, then lift the heart to God, then confess. Skipping to the last step alone is not the return described here.
- Own it — the words admit revolt, not weakness: God says "you shall not," and the sinner says "I will."
- Justify God — to say "You have not forgiven" is to accept that the verdict is just, even while it crushes. It is overwhelming, but it is not unfair.
- Silence explained — prayer that goes nowhere while sin is kept is not a mystery; it is a signal. Obedience is what gives confidence in asking.
- Then pardon — the fullest confession is the very thing God waits for. Where a people justify God, God moves to justify them and remember their sin no more.
Thou hast covered thyself with anger, and pursued us; thou hast slain, thou hast not spared.
Lamentations 3 climbs to its highest point of hope, then drops back in verse 43 to the siege and names God as the one behind the ruin. Can faith say that and still call Him good?
The confession does not soften what happened or shift the blame elsewhere. One writer notes that admitting it to God costs more, not less, than admitting it to anyone else.
Next the prophet describes the ways of God's displeasure with His people openly, with nothing hidden or toned down. This was true. It was right both to feel it and to admit it, though admitting it to such a God makes it far more painful.
The enemies boasted that they had taken the city. The same writer answers them.
It was Jehovah who had done the work of destruction, and He did it because of His people's sin. The nations could boast as they liked of their power over Jerusalem... "He has thrown down and has not pitied."... It is deeply sorrowful that His hand had done it all. Yet it is a comfort to faith, because it is the hand that can and will build up again for His name's sake. And the chastening was not sudden: from the earliest days Jehovah had warned and foretold through Moses what Jeremiah now sets out in detail.
Verse 43 follows straight on from the confession in verse 42. They confess, and nothing changes.
In verses 40-42 the call is to self-judgment. "Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD. Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven. We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven." It was just, but staggering, to find no sign of pardon in His ways.
Writers read this silence in two ways. The first is a warning about praying while still holding on to sin:
There is an important lesson here. It is useless to pray while persisting in sin... Obedience gives confidence. You cannot ask in faith while clinging to something that grieves the Holy Spirit and dishonours the Lord Jesus Christ. If prayer is not answered, if the heavens seem like brass, it is a solemn sign of a wrong state of soul. It should lead to self-judgment, and to giving up every evil way.
The second is more surprising. Asking God to lift the discipline can itself be the wrong prayer:
Sometimes it is not right for a believer to ask God to lift a chastening. If someone prays that way without understanding, it is a mercy that the prayer is not heard. And so it was for Jerusalem then. God's sentence had to run its course, however truly He would show His care for the godly in such sorrow.
The pursuit in verse 43 is not God's settled attitude. The chapter said so a few verses earlier.
"For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though He cause grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love. For He does not afflict from His heart or grieve the children of men." This is what confirms hope, and without hope no one can endure or find comfort. His chastenings of Israel are measured and will end. The same is true of His righteous rule over us now.
The one under the blow can even come to prefer God's hand to any other:
He begins to feel that, after all, it is better to deal with Jehovah. Yet from another side this made it all the more painful. He feels that it is good to be afflicted, and to wait on Jehovah who smites: for He will not cast off forever. He does not afflict willingly, but out of necessity... It is right to feel an affliction like this. The only harm is letting it weaken confidence in the Lord.
One writer also reads these verses as a pattern for a future generation in Israel. He calls them a remnant — the faithful few left when the nation has failed.
From verse 40 on, the passage describes a real return. First comes self-examination... then prayer... then confession: "We have transgressed and rebelled; you have not forgiven." This is a prophecy of how a Jewish remnant will repent at the end of this present age, just before the Lord is revealed in visible glory.
- Own it. The verse does not blame the enemy nations. The hand behind the ruin is God's, and faith says so plainly.
- Then confess. Verse 43 follows verse 42's "we have transgressed" — real self-judgment can still meet no sign of pardon yet.
- Expect silence. Prayer that clings to sin has no claim on God. Unanswered prayer should send us to self-examination, not complaint.
- Accept the sentence. Sometimes the mercy is that God does not lift the discipline, because the sentence must run its course.
- Wait for the end. The anger is measured and will end. He does not afflict willingly, and the hand that threw down will build again.
Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that prayer should not pass through.
Jerusalem lies in ruins, and the people find that their prayers hit a ceiling. God Himself put the barrier there — so what do you do when heaven seems closed?
This line does not stand alone. It follows an honest admission in verses 40-42 that the people had brought it on themselves.
Then in verses 40-42 self-judgment is the word of exhortation. "Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD! Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven. We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven." It was just, but overwhelming, to find no sign of pardon in His ways.
The cloud has a reason, and it lies with the people praying under it.
There is an important lesson here. It is useless to pray while persisting in sin. The man who does not seek to walk with God has no right to expect anything from Him. "Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart." "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you" (Psalm 37:4; John 15:7). This is the key to answered prayer. Obedience gives confidence. It is impossible to ask in faith while holding on to something that grieves the Holy Spirit and dishonours the Lord Jesus Christ. If prayer is not answered, if the heavens seem like brass, it is a solemn sign of a wrong state of soul. It should lead to self-judgment and to forsaking every evil way.
Some prayers ask God to lift a discipline He sent on purpose. Granting them would be the worse outcome.
Next the prophet sets out the ways of God's displeasure with His people, without disguise or softening. This was true; and it was right both to feel it and to own it, though owning it to such a God makes it far more painful. … There are times when it is not fitting for the saint to ask God to lift a chastening. If prayer were made that way in ignorance, it would be a mercy for God not to hear it. And so it was for Jerusalem then. The sentence God passed had to run its course. Even so, He would show His care for the godly in that sorrow.
Under discipline, most people want out before they want answers.
With most of us, I fear, the first aim is to get out of the place of discipline any way we can. We want out without the breaking down before God that leads to searching and testing our ways. This is where Judah failed so badly. God sent the king of Babylon against them because of their sins, and they turned to the king of Egypt for help, in plain defiance of the word of the Lord. But they had to learn in a practical way the bitterness of departure from God.
Jeremiah tells his own story earlier in the chapter. It matches the nation's point for point, and that match is why he tells it.
He had known what it was to cry and shout, and have his prayer shut out from God. The nation could say, "You have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through." … But there was one difference between him and his people. God had brought him out of his affliction; they were still in theirs. … Here then was a man who had gone through affliction like theirs, and God had delivered him. This gives hope, and this is how they are supported in this book.
The cloud is not the last word in this chapter.
But prayer can be effective even in distresses like these, and it has proved so. The following verses show it, as with Jeremiah. "I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, 'Do not close your ear to my cry for help!' You came near when I called on you; you said, 'Do not fear!'" (vv. 55-57).
- Cloud. A heaven like brass is a signal, not an accident. Prayer offered while you hold on to sin cannot get through.
- Cause. The people name the cause in verse 42: they had transgressed and rebelled. The cloud answers their own confession; it is not a riddle.
- Mercy. Some requests are better refused. To cancel a discipline God sent would rob it of its work.
- Cure. The answer is not a faster escape but searching and testing our ways. Judah ran to Egypt instead of breaking down before God.
- Comfort. Jeremiah had his own prayer shut out, and God brought him out. By verse 57 the answer reaches him in the pit: "Do not fear!"